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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29795034">Unbound Blue</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zodiac/pseuds/Zodiac'>Zodiac</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Final Fantasy XIV</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blue Mage | BLU (Final Fantasy XIV), Body Horror, But incorporating FFXI lore, Gen, Male Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Named Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), POV Third Person, Transformation, Vomiting</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 07:46:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,769</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29795034</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zodiac/pseuds/Zodiac</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After learning of blue magic, Glitchy Aster decided to add as many monster abilities to his arsenal as he possibly could, ravenous for the power they offered him. However, there was a reason as to why other blue mages tended not to have as many spells at their disposal...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Unbound Blue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Shoutout to the friend who brought up the fact that blue mages in FFXI usually eventually become mindflayers on account of absorbing so much monster magic because I haven't been able to let that idea go ever since they told me that.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>More power…</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Even now, that was the presiding thought in his mind, lust for more spellcasting knowledge, more skill he could utilize on his enemies, more </span>
  <em>
    <span>aether</span>
  </em>
  <span> driving him more thoroughly than possibly any other force that had acted upon him. It was a hunger, an </span>
  <em>
    <span>addiction</span>
  </em>
  <span> that gnawed away at his waking mind, leaving his attention to inevitably drift from anything that wasn't a step towards that goal. Learning the culinary arts? A temporary distraction. His burgeoning knowledge of alchemy? Simply a hobby, something to bide his time until he discovered a new peak of power to claw his way up.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>While not exactly well-respected on account of his misanthropic attitude, Glitchy Aster was a powerful mage. Skilled in the arts of black magic, he was in command of enough literal firepower to scorch or freeze almost anything in Eorzea that he pleased.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>...Almost.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That one word served as a bleak reminder to him, a chilling fact that there was always someone or something out there who could overpower him, gravely harm him or even snuff out his very existence if they so willed it. The fear of such things happening was the true force underpinning his drunken desire, his insatiable </span>
  <em>
    <span>need</span>
  </em>
  <span>, for power; if he only had a touch more strength, a bit more powerful magic, then he could allow himself the euphoric high of safety… if only until he discovered a new potential threat that he had to fear lest he be destroyed through his complacency.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Paranoia, some might see it as. However, such worries were not without precedence as far as the lalafell was concerned.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>First he was driven from his homeland of Meracydia, smuggling himself away on a supply ship returning to Limsa Lominsa to escape the consequences of crimes he had committed. Next came the ugly scar across his throat that was normally hidden by his choice of clothing, a jagged slash that some thug delivered to him while he was still getting the hang of the whole ‘adventuring in a strange land’ business; a messy yet effective way of cutting off his spellcasting, and one that would have left him bleeding out then and there had a passing chirurgeon not taken pity upon him. Last, but certainly not least, was the voidsent… a wretched, aggravating thing that had its follower cultists kidnap him so it could hollow him out and use him as a new host. He barely had enough willpower to retain his consciousness during the takeover, amusing and impressing the voidsent enough that it allowed him free reign over his body as long as he gathered enough aether to sustain its existence… but he wasn't strong enough to prevent it from doing unspeakable things to his body in the first place.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Power. That was what it all boiled down to in the end.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If he had had enough of it during those key moments in his life, maybe things wouldn't have turned out the way they did. Maybe he would still be living in his homeland. Maybe his throat wouldn't be scarred. Maybe he would have all of his innards and be without that irritating, sing-song voice in his head, goading him on and on for more power, more </span>
  <em>
    <span>delicious aether</span>
  </em>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Well… it certainly couldn't hurt matters. That was his reasoning when he stumbled onto blue magic, anyway.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The guildmaster was an obvious hack, peddling the magical equivalent of snake oil while reeking of desperation and greed. Glitchy's time spent in Ul'dah had made him leery of such merchants, though he didn't doubt that even people inexperienced with such tricks could see right through him. Still… there was no doubting the whiff of true aether rather than smoke and mirrors in his demonstration, the sheer </span>
  <em>
    <span>power</span>
  </em>
  <span> that he had allegedly borrowed from beasts and made his own. So, he paid the fee for one of the soulstones, listening to the poor excuse for a guildmaster for just long enough to get the gist of what needed to be done with it: hunt down some nasty beast, provoke it into using whatever natural abilities it had, and survive the encounter intact to be able to utilize said abilities. Seemed simple enough to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And his travels had made him cross paths with many a nasty beast.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Retracing those journeys brought him back up against those same monsters, but this time, he had blue magic to test out on them. At first, his arsenal was little more than a glorified water gun, but he quickly acquired more skills as he hunted his way across the lands. From wide open meadows to the deepest, blackest pits in the planet, he chose his prey, ranging from creatures in their natural habitats to infestations that had never been fully eradicated during his first pass.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>With every confrontation, he stole away a sliver of the monsters' power, incorporating the best parts of them into himself, weaving their aether into his own as skillfully as he would with the ambient aether when practicing his normal black magic. The killing confidence of a coeurl, predatory might so ancient and self-assured that not even the most fearsome of foes would cause his resolve to waver. The elemental barrage of a chimera, deadly versatility that gave him an option no matter what his enemies may be weak to. To his delight, even magitek creations were able to be copied using that unassuming little stone, offering him access to a wide range of destructive forces engineered by man, not nature. All that and so much more was added to his burgeoning set of abilities, growing his skills even beyond that hack of a guildmaster and all his claims of glory.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He could practically </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel</span>
  </em>
  <span> the power swell, surge, and roil within him, a veritable tempest of aether he could direct towards his enemies in any sort of form he could possibly imagine and more. If the voidsent hadn't drained him dry of blood, it would have been utterly </span>
  <em>
    <span>electric</span>
  </em>
  <span>, singing in joy and victory at all of the strength he held in his fingertips, just waiting to be unleashed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Glitchy felt </span>
  <em>
    <span>ecstatic. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He felt </span>
  <em>
    <span>safe.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Even the voidsent within him was sated for once, maniacal comments now only a dull mumble, rare words of appreciation for the feast of aether being offered to it. Everything was going his way.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And, in his power-high stupor, it didn't occur to him that he could come crashing down in the worst way possible.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <span>He was deep in a set of catacombs near Gridania, hunting down undead abominations that might have interesting powers to add to his collection. The basic skeletons and other walking dead didn't really do anything interesting other than persistently clamoring for brains he no longer had. Their single-mindedness was admirable in a way, but no, what he sought was something with a bit more bite to it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And, when he came upon a room just barely illuminated with fey lights, a massive coffin raised upon a dias on the opposite end of it, he grinned, knowing he had found the right place. Carefully, he approached the coffin, keeping an eye out for any lesser undead that might attempt to sneak up on him. Upon reaching it without any issue, he pried his fingers under the lid and wrenched the top of it off with strength unbefitting his stature.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Within was a monstrosity.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Countless faces mashed together in a vaguely humanoid shape, an unholy amalgamation of damned souls that all turned their cold gazes upon this interloper to their domain. Even after everything Glitchy had been through, he found himself frozen in place when levelled with those dead stares, a cold lance of fear leaving him unable to take any action at all for a moment, two.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then, he moved, breathlessly scrabbling back right as the creature moaned and began clawing its way towards him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He backpedaled until he was almost pressed up against the far wall, taking in unsteady breaths and watching this tortured mess wail and flail in some attempt to kill him. Now that whatever terrorizing spell it had cast on him was gone, he could relax a bit, observe it like the prey that it was to him. If he wanted the ability to flail wildly at his target, he could have easily picked it up from the lesser undead he fought previously in this place. No, he knew this monster must have had some sort of useful power tapped away inside of it, it was simply a matter of holding back so it could use whatever it was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So he did, giving it a wide berth as he watched and waited… Waited… Ah, </span>
  <em>
    <span>there!</span>
  </em>
  <span> An unstable flickering of its form, as though it might blip out of this realm of existence entirely and then it </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span>… at first glance, anyway. At first, he thought it had fled, leaving rather than face a mage of his caliber, until he heard the ghastly groaning in his ear, felt the cold, fetid breath upon the back of his neck, the unmistakable charge of aether being gathered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He leapt before he even thought about it, lunging out of the way before the area around the creature erupted in a storm of swirling purple energy. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Quite the nice little trick,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he had to admit as he whirled back around to keep the thing in his sights.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wanted it for his own.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It may have had that particular spell on its side, but he had so many, many more on his own, enough that taking care of it would be a trifling matter now that he could freely kill it. A jet of water to dampen it, then a burst of hoarfrost froze it where it floated, leaving it vulnerable to any and everything he wanted to throw at it. It was a simple matter, then, to manifest floating swords from his aether, numerous glowing blades that appeared from nothing, one by one. Only once he had summoned a veritable armory did he flick his hand ever-so subtly, sending the lot of them lancing into his foe. They all slid right through the ice as though it wasn't even there, puncturing the monster trapped beneath in countless places, still managing to wrench gurgled croaks from its many mouths despite it being frozen solid. Another gesture and the swords plunged deeper, deeper before, with a sickening tearing noise, they penetrated deeply enough to finish the monster off, shrieking horribly even as it dissipated into its constituent aether.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As it went, Glitchy could feel its power and instincts associated with it fill him, joining that of the myriad other beasts that he had gathered already, a clamoring, but not quite mindless urge to seek vengeance against any and all who would disturb him. It was </span>
  <em>
    <span>strong</span>
  </em>
  <span>, strong enough to send the lalafell falling to his knees, gloved fingers clutching at his now-throbbing head; even the voidsent within him seemed distressed by it, fidgeting and chirping and asking, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“What in all the seven Hells did you just put in your gob?!”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Through the lancing pain in his skull, he was worried that the creature’s power might overtake him, might ravage through his husk of a body and burn what little remained of it out. But no… it didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel</span>
  </em>
  <span> like aether running rampant, a magical chain reaction with no end in sight. Instead, it felt like it was…. melding with all the other abilities he had taken into himself, coalescing together in an abhorrent agglomeration of all the worst, fiercest parts of man and nature.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Before him, his soulstone had fallen onto the mildewed flagstones at some point, the azure glaring out defiantly against the gloom, glowing brilliantly as it absorbed the monster’s power and added it to the rest that was stored within it. But then… the crystal’s shine faded, blue turning as dull as the darkness around it. And, with only his labored panting cutting through the deathly silence around him, Glitchy was able to clearly hear the sharp, clean </span>
  <em>
    <span>crack</span>
  </em>
  <span> as his soulstone shattered under the immense aetherial pressure it was under.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then the pain magnified tenfold.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He toppled forwards, throwing his hands out in front of himself just in time to keep from smashing his face into the stone beneath him. His entire body trembled and shuddered, pain lancing through his body so quickly and deeply that he was sure it was his turn to be impaled by countless numbers of swords. His flesh was on fire, agony enveloping every ilm of his skin and he swore he could feel phantom pain in the innards he no longer had. Through the pain, he vaguely felt that his mouth had hung open and it was only then did he realize he had been screaming.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That wouldn’t be true for long however.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Suddenly, he retched violently, spewing up ichor as viscous as phlegm and inky as the void itself; familiar, mortal impulses told his abused body to expel the contents of his stomach in reaction to such agony. Lacking such an organ as well as blood and bile and any other normal bodily fluid left him with little else to vomit up but whatever dark residue the voidsent had coated the inside of his body with. And speaking of the voidsent, it was having an absolute </span>
  <em>
    <span>fit,</span>
  </em>
  <span> screeching as loudly as he had been and frantically attempting to wrench control from him in an attempt to save its precious host.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not even the powers of the void could prevent what was happening to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He noticed his hands first. Skin shifting from its normally pale tone to a moist, fetal pink, fingers growing narrower and lengthening, already-sharp nails curving into deadly claws. His whole body lengthened as well, pain redoubling as it felt as though he was being yanked on at both ends, the air filling with the sounds of his renewed screaming, bones grinding and cracking, and skin tearing. As he tried to curl up into himself as though it might hide him from the immeasurable agony he was in, he saw rather than felt his legs becoming less solid, flailing jerkily at unnatural angles in response to his mental orders to them. Then, all of a sudden, they both split into three separate legs… though it was doubtful that they could still be considered such as his toes melted together and feet narrowed so each of his new “legs” ended in a tapered tip. Though, as much as he wanted to keep his eyes on that process, he found his field of vision blocked as the flesh around his nose grew out in four places, bulging out as though someone was pressing something out from inside of him. Much like his legs, they grew out perhaps a fulm before tapering off at the ends, now that same pink color that his hands were. His vision blurred and shifted as he felt his eyes grow larger and farther apart to better suit the way his skull was narrowing and pushing up. The change in perspective was tempting him to vomit yet again, so he closed thick lids over his eyes and did his best to ride out the remainder of the changes in his body.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Glitchy didn’t know how much time had passed when the pain and the changes eventually settled—Hells, he could have passed out from it all as far as he knew. Eventually, however, he opened his eyes and looked down at his body, now garbed in a voluminous, black robe that covered much of his changed flesh. After all the adventures he had gone on, he could recognize the appearance of a mindflayer when he saw one. With weak arms, he pushed himself up into a sitting position before unsteadily raising himself up on the tentacles his legs had become. For a few minutes, he just tried to get used to moving about in this new form, knowing that he </span>
  <em>
    <span>should</span>
  </em>
  <span> feel more worried about this whole situation than he was, but also… not especially caring. Like this, he could no longer hear the voidsent chittering away in his head, he could flex his aether to even greater limits.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Like this, he had </span>
  <em>
    <span>power.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>With a flick of his wrist, he blinked out of existence for just a moment, reappearing a few fulms away from his starting position, the ability he had learned from that agglomeration of ghosts. Ah yes, that was quite a useful little trick to have.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He couldn’t wait to learn more from whatever hapless adventurers wandered into what was now his lair.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If you enjoyed this and wanted to screech at me in a manner similar to socializing, then you can find my Twitter right <a href="https://twitter.com/HippestGlitch">here</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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